SELF

The Philosophical
Perspective of the
Self
Understanding the Self
What is self?
PHILOSOPHY
• came from a Latin word philo and sophia.
• Philo means LOVE; Sophia means KNOWLEDGE.
• Loving knowledge; loving wisdom.
• “the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake”
SOCRATES
“Unexamined life is not worth living”

• Greek philosopher. One of the few individuals who

shaped Western thought.
• He never wrote anything. All knowledge – Plato and
Xenophon
• Socratic Method – inquiry or testing of an idea.
Asking series of questions to determine underlying
beliefs on the extent of knowledge to guide the person
toward better understanding.
• Socrates was accused of impiety, at 70 he was
sentenced to death by drinking poison hemlock.
SOCRATES
• Some of Socrastes’ ideas:
• The soul is immortal
• The care of the soul is the task of philosophy
• Virtue is necessary to attain happiness.
• Self-knowledge (examination of one’s self + asking
how one ought to live) by knowing yourself can
improve your life. It will also would open your eyes
to your true nature.
• Your real self is not even your body. the inner state
(soul/ self) determines the quality of your life.
SOCRATES
• Socrates said existence of two kinds:
1. Visible existence – changes; visible to the eyes and
2. Invisible existence – remains constant; sensed by the
mind
• This is the state of human being.
• “When the soul and body are together nature assigns our
body to be a slave and to be ruled and the soul to be ruler
and master”
• He believed that the goal of life is to be happy.
• “Virtuous man is a happy man, and that virtue alone is the
one and only supreme good hat will secure his/her
happiness.”
SOCRATES
• VIRTUE – moral excellence (courage, temperance,
prudence and justice)
PLATO
• Wrote the Socratic Dialogue where Socrates was
the main character and speaker.
• “Collection and Division” , in this method the
philosopher would “collect” all the generic ideas that
seemed to have common characteristics and then
“divide” them into different kinds until the subdivision
of ideas became specific.
• Theory of Forms – physical world is not really “real”
world, because the ultimate reality exists beyond the
physical world.
PLATO
• Soul is the most divine aspect of the human being. Divine
= intellectual connotation.
• Three parts of the soul:
• The Appetitive (sensual) – enjoys sensual experiences
• The Rational (thinking) – element that forbids the person to
enjoy sensual experiences; loves truth; rules over the other
parts of the souls through reason
• The Spirited (feeling) – inclined toward reason but
understands the demands of passion; loves honor and victory.
ST. AUGUSTINE (OF HIPPO)
• One of the Latin Fathers of the Church, Doctors of the
Church, one of the most significant Christian thinkers.
• Was influenced and adopted Plato’s view that the “self” is
immaterial (rather rational) soul
• He gave Theory of Forms a Christian Perspective.
• Self is inner, immaterial “I”. Human being is both a soul
and body. Body possessed senses (imagination, memory,
reason, mind) through which the soul experienced the world
ST. AUGUSTINE (OF HIPPO)
• The aspects of the self/soul:
• It is able to be aware of itself
• It recognizes itself as a holistic one
• It is aware of its unity
• Human being is meant to have higher, divine and heavenly
matters because of his/her capacity to ascend and
comprehend truths through mind.
• St. Augustine pointed out that a person is similar to God as
regards to the mind and its ability; that by ignoring his/her
mind he/she would lose his/her possibility to reach real and
lasting happiness
RENE DESCARTES
• French philosopher. Father of Modern Western Philosophy.
• Regarded as first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to
describe, predict, and understand natural phenomena
based on observational and empirical evidence.
• Doubt was a principal tool of disciplined inquiry.
• Hyperbolical/ Metaphysical doubt aka methodological
skepticism – a systematic process of being skeptical about
the truth on one’s beliefs in order to determine which beliefs
could be ascertained as true.
• Cogito Ergo Sum translated as “I think, therefore I am”
• Everything perceived by the senses could not be used as
proof of existence as human senses could be fooled.
RENE DESCARTES
• One thing we can sure about this world “everything could
be doubted”
• Descartes’ claims about the “self” are:
• It is constant; it is not prone to change; and it is not
affected by time
• Only the immaterial soul remains the same throughout time
• The immaterial soul is the source of our identity
RENE DESCARTES
THE SOUL THE BODY
• It is conscious, thinking substa • It is a material substance t
nce the is affected by time. hat changes through time.

• It is known only to itself (only • It can be doubted; the pub

you know your own mental ev lic can correct claims abou
ent and others cannot correct t the body
your mental states)

• It is not made up of parts. It vi • It is made up of physical, q

ews the entirety of itself with n uantifiable divisible parts
o hidden or separate compart
ments. It is both conscious and
aware of itself at the same tim
e
JOHN LOCKE
• Philosopher, physician and one of the most influential
Enlightenment thinkers
• “Self” includes memories of the thinking thing. This memory
enables him/her to identify himself/herself as the same
person overtime. Defense of Accountability – he/she is
accountable for his/her past behavior (but limited to those
he/she only remembers)
• The state of the person who cannot remember his/her
behavior is as the same state of the person who never
committed an act, which meant the person was
ignorant.
DAVID HUME
• Scottish philosopher, economist and historian during the
Age of Enlightenment
• Fierce opponent of Descartes’ Rationalism.
• Hume, Locke and Bishop George Berkeley – three main
figureheads of the influential British Empiricism movement.
• Empiricism – all knowledge is sense experience
• Bundle Theory – self as “a bundle or collection of different
perceptions that are moving in a very fast and successive
manner, therefore it is in a “perpetual flux”
• Impressions – perceptions that are most strong; directly
experienced
• Ideas – copied and reproduced sense data formulated
based upon the previously perceived impressions.
SIGMUND FREUD
• Philosopher, physiologist, psychologist.
• Psychoanalysis – a practiced devised to treat those who
are mentally ill through dialogue.
• Three levels of consciousness:
• Conscious – deals with awareness of present perceptions,
feelings, thoughts, memories, and fantasies at any
particular moment. Everyday thinking.
• Pre-conscious/ subconscious – data that can readily be
brought to consciousness; and
• Unconscious – data retained but not easily available to
the individual’s conscious awareness or scrutiny.
• Unconscious as: (1) A respository for traumatic repressed
memories; and (2) source of anxiety-provoking drives that is
socially or ethically unacceptable to society.
SIGMUND FREUD
• Psychoanalytic Theory – personality theory based on the
notion that an individual gets motivated by unseen forces,
controlled by the conscious and rational thought.
• Three parts of the mind:
• Id. Operates on the pleasure principle. Every wishful impulse
should be satisfied immediately. Pleasure vs. Unpleasure or
Tension. 100% unconscious.
• Ego. Operates on reality principle. It works out realistic ways of
satisfying id’s demand*. If the ego fails to use the reality
principle, anxiety is experienced and unconscious defense
mechanism appear. Mostly conscious.
• Superego. Morality principle. It incorporates the values and
morals of the society. It persuades ego to choose moralistic
goals and to strive for perfection. Mostly unconscious
SIGMUND FREUD
• The Superego consists of two systems:
1. Conscience. If the ego gives into the id’s demands, the
superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.
2. Ideal Self. It is an imaginary picture of how you ought to
be. It represents career aspirations; how to treat people;
and how to behave as a member of society.